EPTThis is something I'd typically write out, but I felt like making a video for it instead.
E-sport Comparisons are Dumb
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Vogue
United States98 Posts
This is something I'd typically write out, but I felt like making a video for it instead. | ||
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Emzeeshady
Canada4203 Posts
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shindigs
United States4795 Posts
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Vogue
United States98 Posts
So, what you are trying to say is no game can take more skill then another one to play? Are you saying your button pressing example takes just as much skill to play as an actual game? Your logic is confusing :/ Let me try to simplify it for you. Compare golf and bowling. Many would say that golf is a more legitimate game and point to things like difficulty and player salary as the main reasons. But in golf, you're playing against other golfers, so the game is only as hard as your other human opponents make it. The same is true of bowling. Esports is no different, and while games can certainly be better designed or more fun than one another, they aren't a "better" e-sport because of it. More marketable and watchable? Maybe. | ||
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Torte de Lini
Germany38463 Posts
Games are the setting to set player-versus-player scenarios that lead to a diverse amount of interesting matches creating different scenarios of competition. This is true and something you said. But: Games also have different standardizations of demand and competency to perform said skills or expected amount of executed knowledge and strategy to achieve and this is where people begin to compare which E-Sport is "better" (or rather more true to the personalized definition of what an E-Sport title should entail or represent). Your video doesn't accept that the reason these discussions occur are because:
The more E-Sport titles in variety and genre, the more interested audiences: the larger the marketable growth and thus more money flowing into the scene/subculture. The pointlessness of comparing games is that it doesn't achieve anything and urges people to filter a culture that still needs to expand and grow into something generally acceptable (which it hasn't yet). In essence, these discussions happen because people like to filter their interests. Your video could have just concluded with this easy point but rather tried to tackle "legitimacy" and "skill" which is pretty hard to do in 3 minutes. edit: good video, agree on most, but wish you wrote out everything and then provided further points like the above! Double-edit: The end-all be-all argument would be to remark how making judgemental filters about upcoming E-Sport titles deflates the scene and lowers conversion of future audiences to your specific E-Sport or E-Sports in general. In other words, arguments about which game is more legitimate is counter-productive to what you want or the scene desires: more people to consider your E-Sport. Tearing down others doesn't make your scene any better, it just shrinks the legitimacy of the entire culture by offering less avenues to experience competiveness. | ||
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Torte de Lini
Germany38463 Posts
If we were to take that logic, Tic-Tac-Toe would be incredible in depth of strategy/and tactics. I think your example of DiveKick is a double-edged sword: the mind games do have some depth, but because of its limitation in mechanics: it's a great entry-point for future new competitors to get involved. However, the development and evolution of these mind-games can only go so far with so little moves to make - similar to Tic-Tac-Toe: I can only change up my strategy and increase amount of 'meta-thought' before I start becoming redundant both in strategy and overall entertainment and depth of tactics the games can reach. I would argue more that mind-games/strategy has a multiplier gain if the game-mechanics are limited (but stops at a certain threshold), but grows infinitely the more complex the game is in certain aspects (cooperative/singleplayer, phases of the game, number of controlled units, factors, in-game mechanics, player choices, etc. etc. etc.). So less mechanics does give some room for strategy, but also sets a limit or ceiling before things just become more about the player playing the other player rather than relying on the foundation or setting of the game to create opportunities to achieve or win. I'd like to add is that these comparisons are made often because of misinterpretation of the compared games but also because of how people generally summarize games or can misperceive the importance or unimportance of certain game mechanics (controlling many units in comparison to controlling multiple units simultaneously). You also said: "One game can be more interesting, deep or fun than the other but that does nothing to increase its legitimacy as a trial of skill than the other" and I agree, however how that trial of skill is conveyed and how easily it is understood by the audiences (those who know and don't know the game) will depict its popularity in-part and thus create these discussions. | ||
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Mothra
United States1448 Posts
On June 08 2013 15:34 Vogue wrote: Let me try to simplify it for you. Compare golf and bowling. Many would say that golf is a more legitimate game and point to things like difficulty and player salary as the main reasons. But in golf, you're playing against other golfers, so the game is only as hard as your other human opponents make it. The same is true of bowling. Esports is no different, and while games can certainly be better designed or more fun than one another, they aren't a "better" e-sport because of it. More marketable and watchable? Maybe. Even if your contention that no competitive sport is more difficult than another is true (I'm not convinced that they can only be relative to themselves), it still doesn't follow that no sport is better than another. It's especially odd that you say fun and watchability should not be qualities used to judge better or worse in spectator sports. I agree that comments like "controlling only one character is proof of easiness" are pretty pointless, but this is a clumsy way to generalize that. | ||
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Torte de Lini
Germany38463 Posts
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DsT-Napoleon
38 Posts
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Cool Cat
United States1644 Posts
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ne0lith
537 Posts
On June 08 2013 15:34 Vogue wrote: Let me try to simplify it for you. Compare golf and bowling. Many would say that golf is a more legitimate game and point to things like difficulty and player salary as the main reasons. But in golf, you're playing against other golfers, so the game is only as hard as your other human opponents make it. The same is true of bowling. Esports is no different, and while games can certainly be better designed or more fun than one another, they aren't a "better" e-sport because of it. More marketable and watchable? Maybe. You completely ignore the way hard practice is rewarded in different games and how much the skill cap allows for even the most subtle differences between amazing and merely good players to matter. You simply bring down everything to the competition, which can be quite meaningless for games that simply don't have enough depth to reward certain abilities as well as more complex games do. Of course that not all games require the same abilities but you get the point. A game that doesn't require or reward practice very well, doesn't allow for different playstyles and other small differences between players, who should be able to excel or be weaker at different parts of the game, or a game that relies too much on a singular factor to determine skill (as your push the button faster example), can simply not be put in the same category as a demanding, complex game like SC 2 for the simple fact that you compete against people playing the same game (d'oh!). Sure, you'll probably say that all the elements that define skill are subjective and rock paper scissors is in fact just as hard and demanding as chess. | ||
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theking1
Romania658 Posts
The truth is its all about apples and oranges.Everybody watches what they want but if a sport has huge amount of viewers the sport itself benefitts as there will be more money for more athlethes to play leading to more diverse and high level competitions.European football is in itsself a very easy sport to play compared to lets just day boxing(im a boxing fa).99.99999% of all footballers will not reach the level of Ronaldinhio,Maradona or CR7 and most football matches are rather rmediocre.nevertheless people in the European and South Americna continents are crazed and would gladly renounce everything to see a football match.Why?Well the reasons are hard to explain but football has become the symbol of intercity competitions/inter country competitions/inter continental competitions so people relate to it on so many local/national levels.Theyr local football club represents thm in so any ways it simply does not matter how good or bad they do. With esports is sort of simmilar.The fanaticism isnt the same but everybody plays what they like and if an esport has hige amounts of viewers this would lead to more money in prizes and more people willin to offer high quality tournament matches.Difficulty plays a little to no role in this.Form what ive seen if the game is free to play to appeal to regular people and is simple and fun enough for those who arent harcore gamers then it becomes succesfull | ||
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Yurie
11790 Posts
Tic Tac Toe vs Chess is how I would think of it. Chess is still evolving and players improving centuries after its creation. That is something I want in a game I'm watching, but evolving isn't necessary. | ||
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Arisen
United States2382 Posts
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Epishade
United States2267 Posts
On June 08 2013 15:34 Vogue wrote: Let me try to simplify it for you. Compare golf and bowling. Many would say that golf is a more legitimate game and point to things like difficulty and player salary as the main reasons. But in golf, you're playing against other golfers, so the game is only as hard as your other human opponents make it. The same is true of bowling. Esports is no different, and while games can certainly be better designed or more fun than one another, they aren't a "better" e-sport because of it. More marketable and watchable? Maybe. I disagree with your sports comparisons. In golf, you are trying to be the best. You are playing against yourself to see how few shots you can put the ball in the hole. It doesn't matter who your opponents are. Are you going to play any differently if you know who you're up against? You shouldn't. Same goes with bowling. These sports are designed to be a test of skill for the individual, not how you rank up against other people. Esports (I'll just use Starcraft in this case) cannot be compared to those two sports. They involve competing directly against other players. Knowing who you're up against will change how you play as your opponent's actions influence your game. Esports is more akin to tennis or other one on one sports games that involve playing against someone. You can only be ranked appropriately based on how well you fare against other people. There is no individual level of skill in a game like Starcraft. I guess I'm just being nitpicky here though. | ||
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shindigs
United States4795 Posts
well played | ||
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Tobberoth
Sweden6375 Posts
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Hamster1800
United States175 Posts
Here are the arguments that people often make for one game being more skill intensive than another. They are all bad arguments. Therefore, no game is more skill intensive than another. I think that the arguments that people make on this topic are indeed usually bad. However, it is not the case that this means that no game is more skill intensive than another. Furthermore, "skill intensive" seems to be vaguely defined, and I think more often people want a "high skill cap", which I would define as the ability to improve significantly even when you are already very good. A skill cap will be "high enough" if the best player in the world can improve significantly. We will say that "improve significantly" means that if you could play a player against their alternate self, the better form would win a large portion of the games, say 80%+, to take a number from Tobberoth's post above me (though he used it for a different purpose). Note that this immediately rules out games where it is impossible to have a winrate of above 80%. For example, the game consisting of a single hand of poker does not have a high skill cap. However, note that winrates can be amplified by repetition, and many existing games take this strategy into account, such as poker and any game that plays best-of series. I don't think it makes sense to say that every game with "high enough" skill cap has the same skill intensity, but I do think it makes sense to say that it doesn't matter. | ||
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StarStruck
25339 Posts
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Glaive
Sweden138 Posts
The examples may have been dumbed down to the point where his point is almost moot, but the message he´s trying to get across is a great one. "Dumb" arguments like these create a devide in eSports when there is absolutely no need to. DotA 2, LoL, Starcraft 2, CoD, Stree Fighter... All of these games each have seperate communities large enough to sustain themselves. This allows for eSports to branch out into many different, self-sustaining and evergrowing genres, similarly to how hundreds of musical genres have been derived from Blues. With companies quickly realizing eSports accessibility, potential for marketing, and the vast increase of money being pumped into the business as a whole. In time, eSports will surely follow along a similar path; with several genre trees that branch out as more and more competitive games and communities come into existence. | ||
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Kashll
United States1117 Posts
It's meaningless to make any comparisons between these two games because both are just a vehicle for allowing players to compete against each other with a set of pre-defined rules. Please tell me that sounds as ridiculous to you as it does to me... | ||
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ninazerg
United States7291 Posts
On June 10 2013 05:17 Kashll wrote: So by this logic tic-tac-toe is as much a trial of skill and legitimate competition as chess. No. tic-tac-toe is way harder than chess. | ||
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Glaive
Sweden138 Posts
On June 10 2013 05:17 Kashll wrote: So by this logic tic-tac-toe is as much a trial of skill and legitimate competition as chess. After all you're competing against another player there not the game. It's meaningless to make any comparisons between these two games because both are just a vehicle for allowing players to compete against each other with a set of pre-defined rules. Please tell me that sounds as ridiculous to you as it does to me... Tic tac toe has a right way and a wrong way to play it. If you´re playing tic tac toe you´re probably 5-7 years old and don´t care about much else than beating your peers at a very basic game. Vastly different from a game of chess which has more variations in it than there are atoms in the known universe. So yes, comparing them is pointless and what you said does sound ridiculous  Then there are folks who prefer playing tic tac toe (to stick with the somewhat silly comparison) over Chess; there is plenty of room for both to coexist, without meaningless deamining of either party for prefering to play/compete within different sets of rules. That´s the type of debate the OP is annoyed with, and what I think you should take from his video - not so much that it´s an absolute truth that every game ever created is equal in terms of "legitimate competition and trial of skill". | ||
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Vogue
United States98 Posts
On June 10 2013 08:05 Glaive wrote: Then there are folks who prefer playing tic tac toe (to stick with the somewhat silly comparison) over Chess; there is plenty of room for both to coexist, without meaningless deamining of either party for prefering to play/compete within different sets of rules. That´s the type of debate the OP is annoyed with, and what I think you should take from his video - not so much that it´s an absolute truth that every game ever created is equal in terms of "legitimate competition and trial of skill". This is pretty much it exactly, I didn't think this point would have been so hard to get across but I guess either I wasn't clear enough/emphasized parts I just needed to touch on, or peoples' biases are too strong. | ||
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ninazerg
United States7291 Posts
On June 10 2013 08:05 Glaive wrote: Tic tac toe has a right way and a wrong way to play it. If you´re playing tic tac toe you´re probably 5-7 years old and don´t care about much else than beating your peers at a very basic game. Vastly different from a game of chess which has more variations in it than there are atoms in the known universe. So yes, comparing them is pointless and what you said does sound ridiculous Then there are folks who prefer playing tic tac toe (to stick with the somewhat silly comparison) over Chess; there is plenty of room for both to coexist, without meaningless deamining of either party for prefering to play/compete within different sets of rules. That´s the type of debate the OP is annoyed with, and what I think you should take from his video - not so much that it´s an absolute truth that every game ever created is equal in terms of "legitimate competition and trial of skill". Look, if it's bean-bag tic-tac-toe, there's no way chess can win, because you would just throw a bean bag at the chess pieces and it'd be over. | ||
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Glaive
Sweden138 Posts
On June 10 2013 15:26 Vogue wrote: This is pretty much it exactly, I didn't think this point would have been so hard to get across but I guess either I wasn't clear enough/emphasized parts I just needed to touch on, or peoples' biases are too strong. Glad I could be of help  As I mentioned in the previous comment, I had no problem following your logic. I saw waaaay too many of these on the Wc3 forums. "Wc3 vs BW", "Dota vs Wc3", "Wc3 vs DoW" and so on and so forth. They always annoyed the crap out of me too because to me the point you wanted to get across was always abundantly clear. 5/5 | ||
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Tobberoth
Sweden6375 Posts
On June 10 2013 08:05 Glaive wrote: Then there are folks who prefer playing tic tac toe (to stick with the somewhat silly comparison) over Chess; there is plenty of room for both to coexist, without meaningless deamining of either party for prefering to play/compete within different sets of rules. Unfortunately, this argument doesn't hold. Yeah, if esport was as big as soccer, it wouldn't be a problem, but it isn't. When there's a big LoL tournament, there are far fewer Dota 2 viewers. When there's a big dota 2 tournament like the international, other games lose viewers. The amount of people who watch esport is very limited, and there's fierce competition. If Lol died and Dota 2 got all of their viewers, it would be amazing for the dota 2 scene. The same is true for SC2. This is why people care. | ||
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ne0lith
537 Posts
On June 10 2013 17:11 Tobberoth wrote: Unfortunately, this argument doesn't hold. Yeah, if esport was as big as soccer, it wouldn't be a problem, but it isn't. When there's a big LoL tournament, there are far fewer Dota 2 viewers. When there's a big dota 2 tournament like the international, other games lose viewers. The amount of people who watch esport is very limited, and there's fierce competition. If Lol died and Dota 2 got all of their viewers, it would be amazing for the dota 2 scene. The same is true for SC2. This is why people care. And that's kinda besides the point made in the OP anyway. What people disagreed with was his argument about skill level, which basically implies that any game can be an e-sport because you're competing against people playing the same thing and the difficulty of being good relies solely on your opponent's strength. The only thing where the OP is right is that comparisons between games from different genres that have nothing to do with each other are pointless but then again, most level-headed people knew that. Besides that, his speech is simply using a flawed logic. | ||
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Glaive
Sweden138 Posts
On June 10 2013 17:11 Tobberoth wrote: Unfortunately, this argument doesn't hold. Yeah, if esport was as big as soccer, it wouldn't be a problem, but it isn't. When there's a big LoL tournament, there are far fewer Dota 2 viewers. When there's a big dota 2 tournament like the international, other games lose viewers. The amount of people who watch esport is very limited, and there's fierce competition. If Lol died and Dota 2 got all of their viewers, it would be amazing for the dota 2 scene. The same is true for SC2. This is why people care. Yes, there are small variances in viewership numbers. Ultimately though, the player- and fanbase of all these games are large enough to sustain themselves, and continuously grow. Including ratings. It´s only a problem because we´ve made it one. It absolutely doesn´t need to be. eSport will continue to grow regardless what happens to Dota2/LoL/Sc2 within the next few years, don´t worry. It´s only a matter of time before Soccer is the only sport in the world that eSport has not surpassed in terms of accesibility, ratings and money pumped into the industri. You heard it here first. | ||
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Tobberoth
Sweden6375 Posts
On June 10 2013 19:55 Glaive wrote: eSport will continue to grow regardless what happens to Dota2/LoL/Sc2 within the next few years, don´t worry. Maybe, but that's besides the point. Most of the people who argue about which esports game is better do not care about the esport scene in 10 years as much as they care about the scene surrounding their favorite game. Hell, in 10 years maybe the only esports scene which draws the numbers we see today is some new quake-style FPS. That will suck balls for people like me who find FPS uninteresting. | ||
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Glaive
Sweden138 Posts
I have some pretty ballsy predictions for the future, (been doing a ton of research for the book I´m working on) but I think in 10 years it´s safe to say every major genre will draw at least the numbers that LoL has today. I see no reason why the growth would slow down with the production value, sponsorship deals and major cash checks increasing at this amazing rate. Companies have finally learned how to get a good return on their investments into eSports. That´s why we´re able to see all these major events being hosted with huge backing behind them since roughly around LoLs explosive growth and the release of Sc2. Starcraft 2 especially has nothing to worry about, perhaps I´d be singing a different tune if I were a competitive LoL players (I doubt it though), it´s such a nische genre that will always have a fanbase that grows at a slow and steady pace. Apparently like half of my FB friends (met them all at giant Uni graduation party the other day) have started following my own progress as well as getting into Starcraft 2 because if its amazing appeal as a spectator sport. Hell, even my GF who´s never played a game of Starcraft in her life was so excited she accidentally spoiled some GSL results for me xD I don´t know about in other major cities right now, but alot of my friends who are in their 4th and 5th year (basically running the entire show, it´s hierarky based like that), are involved in all these "University Starleagues" and various LAN-tournaments being hosted in Stocholm. Incredibly fun events and fanstastic for scouting new talents. High school graduates who just started Uni, perhaps they played a ton of Sc2 in High School, these kids show up and some of them have some pretty sick skills (usually only in one area though). Been talking to some friends about creating an official KTH (The Royal Institinute of Technology) team. Everything is just running so smoothly now that my friends are employed by Google, Spotify, etc. and the rest running my University. The manpower and resources at our fingertops here in Stockholm alone is pretty insane. I hope the same is true in other major universities, Starcraft 2 and the more local fanbase will be seeing a lot more of http://www.kth.se/en and in 2011 it was ranked 53d in the world for Engineering & Technology (making it the highest ranked institution in Scandinavia) and 99th in the Natural Sciences. In 2010 Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranked KTH 5th My webdesigner is also runninig the Uni-SL, I´ll try to contact some old friends and see if we can´t get Thorzain, Naniwa and Glaive back together again at one of these upcoming events xD It´s going to be sick. I hope all of you university students are reading this. Take some initiate, your school isn´t stupid. They know how much money is involved in eSports already. If anyone reads this and wants some pointers in how to get something like this going at your shchool (LANs, tournaments, Finals) and have a budget for it, you can contact me at alexander.itg@gmail.com Making eSports a part of the education of young adults is paramount to take eSports to that next extremely level where we´ll start setting "eSports programs/school" It wasn´t really until I did all this research that I felt confident enough that my RTS skills as a player combined with my writing will definitely allow me to make a living off of my single greatest passion in life - within time. There is simply more room for people like me to dedicate themselves full-time to practicing and creating community content - if done right - and make "an okay" living. I don´t have high hopes for the immidiately, as I´m completely broke and can only find LAN-sponsorship. I just need to make it through the summer somehow, so I can continue practicing, competing at events and writing on the side. By then I´ll have hit GM and can start getting decent results at some of these events. | ||
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